Argentine rock star Gustavo Cerati remained in critical but stable condition following brain surgery for a "mini-stroke" he suffered over the weekend, his doctors said Thursday.

Cerati, whose former band Soda Stereo is among the best known rock bands from Latin America, was in an induced coma at a Caracas, Venezuela, hospital.

"At the moment there is no evidence of neurological deterioration compared to yesterday," hospital director Adolfredo Saez said. "His other organs and systems are functioning normal. Like we have said, his situation is critical."

The deceptively acerbic “American Idol” judge and super-producer told Oprah Winfrey Thursday that he'd grown as much as he could with "Idol," and he'd always wanted to leave before he would be asked to.

“I’m leaving for the same reasons you left,” Cowell told the Chicago host, who announced her decision to pull the plug on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” last November. “You just know that time’s up. I remember the first year when we did this, and it was like an adventure, and I loved not knowing if it would be successful, and the buzz...we were kind of making it up every week.”

But there comes a point, Cowell said, when “you go on automatic pilot, and there were too many times I was sitting there bored. I can’t hide it when I’m bored. And I thought, the audience deserves more than to tune in, and I’m bored.”

Conservatives will likely take issue with the latest film to premiere here in Cannes, but liberals may think it's the best thing since sliced bread.

The movie in question? “Fair Game”, which tells the story of Valerie Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson. Plame is the former covert CIA operative, whose identity was allegedly leaked by the Bush Administration after Wilson publicly criticized the President’s use of faulty intelligence to justify going to war in Iraq.

The film, starring Naomi Watts as Plame and Sean Penn as Wilson, holds its official premiere tonight, but I dropped by an earlier screening, and I think this film has potential Oscar nominee written all over it.

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, the Poison frontman and current Celebrity Apprentice finalist ’fessed up to what he was watching on television when his near-fatal brain hemorrhage happened last month.

“I was going back and forth from SportsCenter to ‘Busty Cops 3,’ ” the rocker admits. “Maybe that’s what did it!"

Russell Brand, always the character, told David Letterman about the two days he spent with the Marines at Camp Pendleton in Southern California on the “Late Show” Wednesday.

Brand said he admires the Marines’ bravery, masculinity and strength of character.

“I love the Marines, I respect them, I can’t believe the heroic things they do and the way they live,” Brand said. “I went to live with them for 48 hours to see what it would be like to be in the Marines - it’s difficult.

And when Letterman asked Brand how the training went, he replied, “Well, I wish I could say I did rather well, but it was compromising.”

One of the most compromising parts being the 10 kilometer hike Brand took part in at 3:30 a.m., carrying a 70 pound backpack.

“A lot of the stuff in (the backpack) I didn’t even need,” he said. “A Shovel. I said ‘has everyone got a shovel?’ And they went, ‘Yeah.’ Then what am I taking mine for then? If I need (a shovel) I’ll borrow one of theirs,” Brand joked. “We’re a team.”

After a bit of dust-up earlier this week because the pint-sized pop star garnered a BET Award for Best New Artist, he took to twitter, saying that “music is color blind.”

Now he’s got another defender, Sean Diddy Combs.

The hip-hop mogul says that the awards are important to hip-hop because it shows artists in the “right light.”

“But the beauty of BET is," he added, "if Justin Bieber’s hot, then he deserves to be on that stage. Sometimes, at other award shows, the color of your skin or the type of music you make takes away from getting the accolade you deserve.”